Posted on 05/05/2013 6:28:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
The $100 is what I get to teach all my students, not each. I should have been more clear. It really doesn't buy a lot of hands-on and lab materials.
I won't pretend that I can accomplish with my students what you did with your children, because I can't. I can say that one of my students graduated high school last year. I have followed him closely, tutoring him on my own time, and acting as a bit of surrogate father on occasion. He is the first person in his family to EVER earn a high school diploma... from either side of his family.
Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles... not a one with a high school diploma, and most of them on public assistance. He won't attend college, but he does have a job. Keeping his paycheck away from the hoard of freeloaders is a different matter, but I think I helped him have a chance at a future. It's not headline news, but I get some satisfaction from it.
MILLIONS of dollars were spent on a list that is **COMMON SENSE**!!!! If a common teacher must be told to do the above she should be fired immediately. Geeze! And...We wonder why we don't have a balanced budget?
The above example is a kindergarten standard, addressed to someone who was understandably concerned about a book shared with a class. The standards increase in complexity with grade level.
I confess to not being overly familiar with the English standards, as that's not what I teach. The math standards make more sense to me... not in what is taught, but when. For example, "angles created when parallel lines are cut by a transversal" used to be a high school geometry standard in my state. Under Common Core, that is taught in 7th and 8th grade.
I hope you are not assuming that I spent $100/year on curriculum each year for each of my homeschoolers as individuals because we didn't. It was **less** than $100 for all three for their entire curriculum.
I don't know how we did it. Hm?...Recycled phonics, Saxon Math, grammar, spelling, and handwriting books that are now being used by the grandchildren and books from the library. How on earth did we manage?
By the way, our new little struggling church met for a time in a private school. Guess what? They were using the same Latin grammar books that I used as a kid. These rows of Latin books were published in 1947. Really! It's true. I bet no professional “educator” has ever asked anyone in the private school how they manage to do it.
If is it EVIL and an assault on freedom of conscience for the government anywhere on earth to force religion on children who are compelled by law to be in a state indoctrination center, then it is EVIL for that government anywhere in the universe to impose GODLESSNESS!
It is equally EVIL for the taxpayer to be under police threat to pay for either.
So?....What should I think about the armies of government school teachers who go to work every day to establish, support, and implement the FORCING of godlessness or any other religious worldview on children? Personally, I have made a decision. I shun them.
It is time someone points to the institution of government teaching and cry, “Look! These teachers have no clothes. They aren't resurrected Mother Teresas!”
I do my fair share of scrounging. I also "borrow" ideas and projects from the internet. I dislike teaching math with one worksheet after another, so I like to incorporate labs whenever possible. Good ideas don't have to be expensive, but they often entail some cost. I wish I could do more.
I agree that some useful resources from the past were needlessly discarded. Judging from what I see, I don't think penmanship is even taught anymore.
My apologies in my haste I read “angles” to be “angels”. I do not apologize for the comments that follow regarding government schooling because to do that would be to deny the truth.
As transversals and angles ( internal, external, or corresponding) THIS is insanity! I predict complete CATASTROPHY!
Higher level math concepts should be reserved until the students are fully comfortable with the basics. Those on the 7th and 8th grade levels ( regardless of the age of the student) should be mastering these basics until they absolutely fluent in them.
Your children have math degrees, so I'm assuming your religion doesn't have a problem with geometry.
I regretfully accept your shunning. It's a shame. Because of your success with your children, you could probably give me some tips.
In friendship and true Christian love, I have to tell you that your message is diluted because your random ranting makes you appear unbalanced.
That's better than nothing, but not much more.
Vouchers are the only meaningful transitional plan to educational freedom.
Otherwise, homeschool. It was the best deciaion we could have made regarding our children's overall well-being.
” The definition of **learning** about transversals is **knowing ** transversals.” A person will **learn** transversals when they are ready to learn it. You can teach transversals to a kindergartner than doesn't mean he will **learn** it. Hey! Even I can teach my puppy transversals.”
Geeze! (eyeroll) Why do teachers ( who are supposed to be “professionals” cooperate with teaching methods that they should know **will* and **do** fail? It is malpractice! No one is holding a gun to their heads.
Other professionals know that if they cooperate in malpractice they will be sued and likely lose their licenses. Where are the malpractice attorneys when defenseless children are subjected to teaching malpractice?
Sorry for the spelling error. I am in a hurry, today, Bye!
Yep! Fully agree that we should extend Christian love to abortion workers as well. Sometimes it is Tough Love.
We’ll be lucky if we ever see 10% homeschooling. Meanwhile the public schools will continue taking your money and pumping out the marxist majority that will rule over the home schooled kids of the future.
Political withdrawal from public schools is already a failure.
As you have obviously learned you will get no where with this poster. Nothing you can say will change the idiocy that emanates from that keyboard. Welcome to the land of the shunned - not that it is any big deal coming from that one.
Are you implying that a conservative public school teacher is equivalent to an abortion worker?
I know quite a few conservative teachers in public schools in a variety of subjects. They let their students think for themselves.
Your final paragraph is both profound and succinct...bravo!!! I have no real problem with standards but everybody should first understand who is writing, promulgating, and funding the standards in order to get the true context and their ultimate goal. The article’s mention of the funding difference for MA on the Race to the Top competition was also telling. Your concern about agendas is well-justified, especially when these advocates wish to play Orwellian word games.
Most of the time.
Some of the time, a line is crossed, and a person is revealed to be a nut. Comparing me to an abortion provider crossed that line.
The English standards could fairly be seen as a Trojan Horse for government propaganda.
One of the big changes that they impose is to require a majority of the material studied to be informational rather than literary. That ‘informational’ reading spans history, science, etc., and is generally set at the state level. The states are banding into various large consortia, however, with up to 25 states so far in each consortium. Also, there is a dogmatic push to study only the actual material in these informational texts, rather than to invite or allow critical reading through augmentation with external sources.
Thus, more than half of students’ time studying English has become devoted to the narrow reading of government provided ‘informational’ texts on environmentalism and other typically slanted documents. It truly does take propaganda in schools to unprecedented levels.
Also, though there’s all sorts of justification for these standards assuring that all students achieve at the prescribed levels, they also provide ‘scaffolding’ such that students reading way below the level of the texts can be helped to limp along through the process even though they’ve not necessarily achieved mastery at any level.
They might be seen that way, but they're not written that way.
As I said in a previous post, the standards present broad ideas that should be mastered, but do not go into detail about the actual curriculum (the way in which the standards are taught).
The point I've tried to make, not very successfully, is that the standards themselves are not a great concern so far as education goes. For the most part, individual teachers select the vehicles that will be used to teach the material. So, for example, if a teacher says he's assigning a sexually charged novel because it's required by the standard, that's a lie, and he should be held accountable.
I should have included this in my previous post... you are absolutely correct in regards to scaffolding. It's a major complaint that I have with my school and with education in general.
Since NCLB, students are shoved upwards and onwards with little regard to what they may have learned. In the schools I'm familiar with, the resources that are dedicated to "reluctant learners" dwarf those allocated to honors and AP students. The message has been received: Get them through any way you have to, but DO NOT mess with graduation rates.
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